Simone Rocha / Spring 2014 RTW

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Simone Rocha was at a wedding in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland this summer. What with the landscape and the emotion, something deep stirred in this wild Irish girl. “It was the amazing textures and the colors, and the idea of union and marriage, and how women are in that real community,” she said, breathless after a show that had ecstatic press and buyers clamoring for her attention. Her press release was written in true Irish-poetic: words about mourning, communion and isolation, sheep, gorse, moss and rock, and “a balance and a constraint, soft and rough and tough, men and women.”

If all that sounds as if it could veer towards the pretentious, forget it. Weddings have been a curious subtext of the season, what with all the white on the runways, but Simone Rocha’s lively ambivalence about tradition and ritual is completely rinsed of anything soppily “bridal.” “Look at the punkish hair—see, that’s my generation!” she laughed.

What’s special about Rocha is that she has managed to convert so many natural tomboys to her brand of girly dresses. Somehow, she always manages to undercut the sweetness of dirndl-dresses she likes, and make hand-craftiness (lace, broderie anglaise, and crochet) marry up with plastic, spongy synthetics and leather. She’s also an ace at top-to-toe accessorizing in a way which manages to be frumpy, edgy, pretty, and useful all at the same time. Capacious bags, stacked pearl collars, pearl-embroidered pop-socks, and lots of versions of her Lucite-heeled shoes, embellished with velvet and daisy-form pearl-embroidery: Rocha has a look which could well develop into a full-fledged “brand” within not too long.

Given all that, Simone Rocha is still at an age where experimentation and making a statement is really important. London is the place you can see that daring—the designer growth-spurt—taking place on many runways. Simone Rocha, who graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2010, is one of the unafraid. We all saw that when she half-covered—and tied up—her last few models with a smothering of stocking-beige tulle veils. How great it is to see a young woman channeling her feelings about feminity and feminism. “It’s very personal,” she said. True. But how come every woman in the house completely got what she was talking about?